Who am I? And what’s my claim to progressive fame?

Progressive-history and trivia buffs, this one’s for you. Occasional Planet is introducing a new feature, called “Who Am I?” After this one introduces the series, you’ll find subsequent “Who Am I” images over there on the right side of our site. [Gee, maybe it should be on the left! But the right column is where we have the space, so we’ll just have to live with that. The page placement is not a political statement.] Anyway…

Occasional Planet’s “Who Am I” sidebar features people who have made important contributions to liberal thought, progressive politics, human rights, enlightened education, and “small-d” democratic principles. We know that you may not, at first, recognize the photos of some our [admittedly arbitrary] progressive hall of famers. That’s okay, because one of our goals is to add a bit of play to your journey into progressive history. Mostly, we hope that curiosity will impel you to click the images to find out more about these inspiring people, whose professional efforts and personal sacrifices deserve to be remembered—and emulated.

We welcome suggestions from our readers for additional Hall of Famers.

We offer our progressive hall of famers in no particular order. But as they accumulate, you’ll be able to find them in our Progressive Hall of Fame gallery, which is also just one click away, up there on our navigation bar.